Around Broadneck: A duo duels in a contest with a dual purpose

By Wendi Winters, Staff

Russell Jones of Arnold and Paul Murray began a musical partnership in the 1970s, which they revived in 2009 as The Grey Legends. They are currently one of two Maryland music acts among 195 nationwide competing in the Bands 4 Good Challenge 2014, which will give the winners bragging rights and raise funds to help keep music in schools across the United States.

Russell Jones of Arnold and Paul Murray began a musical partnership in the 1970s, which they revived in 2009 as The Grey Legends. They are currently one of two Maryland music acts among 195 nationwide competing in the Bands 4 Good Challenge 2014, which will give the winners bragging rights and raise funds to help keep music in schools across the United States. (By Wendi Winters, Staff)

Wendi Winters, wwinters@capgaznews.com

Back in the 1970s, when their hair was longer, thicker — and, well — more plentiful, Russell Jones and Paul Murray found they enjoyed making music together. They became fast friends during their high school years at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville.

Part of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based Doing Good Network, the competition has a dual purpose: not only will performers duel musically for the top spot within their genre, they'll raise funds intended to help keep music in schools.

A band's or performer's fans can cast a single vote daily or they can buy votes.

Ten dollars will purchase 100 votes. Two hundred dollars is worth 10,000 votes. The money will be donated to one of five of this year's Bands 4 Good nonprofit beneficiaries, including Little Kids Rock and Kid Pan Alley.

The individual and purchased votes are just one element of the contestants' overall scores. Judges, all professional musicians, score the competitors on five talent elements.

Jones and Murray are passionate advocates for keeping the arts alive in public schools.

"If a student is involved in the arts or music," said Jones, a longtime Arnold resident whose two grown children Emily and Scott are, respectively, 2007 and 2005 graduates of Broadneck High, "their grades are always higher."

"But school boards will cut the arts before they cut the football budget," added Murray, rolling his eyes.

"We're in this contest to help raise money to get musical instruments into schools across the country. If there is an instrument available, a student can use it until they can buy one. They get a chance to see if they like a particular instrument before they purchase or rent one," Murray said. "That's what we'd like to help accomplish."

"Playing music with a group improves other skills, too, like leadership, organizational and social skills," Jones said.

When mullets and three-piece suits were the rage, as a popular duo at venues throughout Maryland and D.C., Jones and Murray honed their craft as "Russ 'n Paul". The two earned an award at the 1976 American Song Festival.

They recorded "See You In Court," an album released in early 1979. It got the nod from Billboard Magazine as a "recommended LP."

Once the '80s arrived, the friends got busy with life, careers and family. They drifted apart. They only heard of each other's growing family and thinning hair lines through annual holiday newsletters for nearly three decades.

Both men played with other bands through the years. Jones was a member of the Black Cadillacs.

They didn't get back together again until Murray's wife Kathy called Jones. She invited him and his wife, Ellen, a teacher at Arnold Elementary, to Murray's 55th birthday dinner.

That old spark was still there.

"It's like nothing stopped," said Murray.

They decided to perform together again, this time as The Grey Legends.

"We're both gray and, in our minds, we feel we're legends," said Jones with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now we have to prove it."

They perform their original music, and cover vocal duos like Simon and Garfunkel. Their blended indie acoustic music and vocals evoke the influences of pop and country music, plus there is a subtle infusion of jazz.

In 2013, they wrote and recorded a new album, a five-song CD, "Russ and Paul: 30 Years" at Mill Creek Studio in Arnold.

Arnold resident Andrew Greene, a 2009 Broadneck High School graduate, founded and is the conductor of the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra, composed of professional musicians, music instructors and college students. Among its venues, the orchestra has performed locally at Maryland Hall, and, in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and The Kennedy Center.

The orchestra's performance at Maryland Hall was taped and edited by videographer John Thornton. Combined with a behind-the-scenes look at the performers and interviews with ragtime scholars, the 21:24-minute documentary is available for viewing, free, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR7ym8fc8ys .

Greene has been performing ragtime music, especially the classic Scott Joplin tunes like "Maple Leaf Rag," since his middle school years at Magothy Middle.

Bell ringing

The Friday Four, a hand bell quartet from the Asbury United Methodist Church of Arnold, will ring Christmas music from 5 to 6 p.m., Friday at Arnold Pharmacy, in the Arnold Station Shopping Center; 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Farmer's Market on Riva Road and Truman Parkway in Annapolis; 1 to 2 p.m., Dec. 19, at the Arnold Senior Center on Church Road.

Australian orchestra

The Broadneck High School orchestra will be hosting and performing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in an exchange concert at the school at 7 p.m. Dec. 16.

The visiting students attend the Melbourne Grammar Senior School, a boarding school for young men in Australia. The orchestra is under the direction of Mark Drummond, the concertmaster of the Orchestra Victoria, the Australian Pops and the Philharmonic Orchestra in Australia.